History Characters / TurningRed

* SignificantWardrobeShift: In the first act, Mei dresses relatively plainly, with a red cardigan, pink shirt and dark blue skirt. Her only jewelry is a couple of plastic or fabric bracelets. After her friends find out about her red panda form and she starts embracing it, she takes off the cardigan, puts on star-shaped stick-on earrings, and starts wearing a black choker around her neck -- except at home, where she removes the jewelry and reverts to being "perfect little Mei-Mei". In the epilogue, she's wearing the choker at home and the stick-on earrings have been replaced by real ones, meaning she has gotten her ears pierced and strongly implying the change is permanent.

* TrueCompanions: They are definitely this. When they see her red panda form for the first time, instead of shunning her, they compliment her new ability and assure her that they love her no matter what. Throughout the rest of the story, they stick by her through thick and thin, and are even willing to forgive [[spoiler:her betrayal of them at Tyler's party]].

* TransformationConventions: Even though she's a FriendToAllLivingThings, her favorite animals are red pandas. It's a no-brainer that, when blessed by the deities, she and her female descendants are granted the ability to shapeshift into red pandas, if gigantic ones.

* SuperStrength: Her red panda form is very strong.

** [[spoiler:At Tyler's party, panda-Mei can jump high in the air carrying up to a dozen 13-year-old schoolkids. ]]

* GentleGiant: Her red panda form is massive ''and'' extremely powerful, but after learning how to control it, Mei is careful with her newfound strength and makes sure not to injure anyone. She remains a friendly and exceptionally dorky kid nevertheless, and as an added bonus, she's an excellent hugger thanks to how fluffy and plump she is. However, she ''will'' lose her temper if [[BewareTheSillyOnes pushed hard enough]], so it's not a good idea to provoke her.
* GirlsLoveStuffedAnimals: Mei has a shelf-full of stuffed animals in her bedroom. One in particular, named Wilfred, has been with her for years, and is clearly a SecurityBlanket of sorts. The animals [[ChekhovsGun become a plot point]] when [[spoiler:she uses them to make a SleepingDummy so she can slip out to go to Tyler's birthday party]].

* LockedIntoStrangeness: The red panda transformation curse also gives the naturally black-haired Mei bright red hair in human form. [[spoiler:After she decides to keep the red panda form, it's implied it'll be like that permanently.]]

** She's visibly horrified when she realises her mom is spying on and embarrassing her while she's in a maths class.

* SecurityBlanket: Wilfred the stuffed animal is one for her: she's had it for years, she sleeps with it, and she holds tight to it for comfort after her red panda form manifests. It's the one thing her parents let her keep [[spoiler:when they empty her bedroom of all her other belongings, so that they won't be damaged by her repeated, uncontrolled transformations or [[SelfHarm attempts to hurt herself to try and get rid of it]].]]

** Her nickname is pronounced similarly to the Mandarin Chinese word-phrase for "little sister" (妹妹, ''mèimei''). While Mei doesn't have siblings, she seems to be [[TheBabyOfTheBunch the youngest person in her extended family]].

*** In the Mandarin dubs for both the Mainland and Taiwan, her given name is transcribed as 美玲 (''[[BarelyChangedDubName Měilíng]]''), a common feminine Chinese name[[note]]it translates to "beautiful tinkling-of-jade"[[/note]].

* NotQuiteBackToNormal: After she wakes up as a red panda, Mei has to struggle to turn herself back into a human girl. Eventually she manages to do it and make it stick. For a moment she thinks everything's back to normal. Then she sees herself in her bedroom mirror, and realizes her hair is still bright red instead of its original black.[[note]]The DVD commentary says explicitly that this was done to make sure there was still something visibly 'magical' about Mei's appearance, even when she was human.[[/note]]

* RedEyesTakeWarning: When particularly angry, Mei's eyes turn red in her panda form. Needless to say, it's not a good idea to provoke a giant red panda, as [[spoiler:Tyler learns the hard way when he pushes her too far and she attacks him.]]

* AngerBornOfWorry: Not only is she scared of losing her doting daughter's affection, but she fears Mei may [[HistoryRepeats lose control of her panda spirit]]. Ming goes absolutely ballistic when Mei [[spoiler:openly defies her family's wishes in sealing the spirit away, believing her "perfect daughter" is throwing her life and future away.]]

* GrandparentFavoritism: Wu is tough on her daughters (to the point that Ming ''feared'' her). With Mei, however, she's stern, but not too intimidating. She's quite doting towards her as well but is harsh on Lily, telling her to be quiet nearly everytime the latter opens her mouth.

* OddNameOut: Chen's name does not end with '-ing', unlike her sisters Ming and Ping.

She is Chen and Ping's sister, Ming Lee's mother, Helen and Lily's aunt, Jin's mother-in-law, Mei Lee's grandmother, and Vivian's great-aunt.

* NeverMessWithGranny: She may have been a poor parent to Ming, but Wu genuinely loves her daughters (and granddaughters) and will go to any lengths to protect them. She even [[spoiler:smashes her own talisman and releases her own panda spirit in order to try and save Ming, even knowing that doing so may be irreversible]].
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Her entire reason for attending the Red Moon ritual was to prevent any chaos from an emerging out-of-control panda spirit, not inadvertently ''enable it''. [[spoiler:Her daughters, niece, granddaughter, and she furiously berate Ming for her inability to control Mei, who has abandoned her [[PointOfNoReturn only opportunity]] of sealing away her panda spirit into a talisman. However, they are unaware that Ming's own talisman is cracking under the stress and inner-turmoil of being "betrayed" by her own daughter. Upon witnessing Ming's red panda form being unleashed, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Wu becomes extremely terrified that she has just repeated history by angering Ming again]].]]

Ming, Ping, and Chen's mother and Mei's grandmother.

* BoyBand: They are a five-member boy band in the vein of Music/BackstreetBoys and Music/{{Nsync}}. As far as fictional boy bands go, the trope is played straight with very little irony, especially since the film takes place in the early 2000s when boy bands were still at the height of their popularity in North America.

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* DeadpanSnarker: She does have a few moments which show her dry wit.

* AmbiguouslyGay: He never shows overt attraction to the girls, but he [[spoiler:screams that he loves Aaron Z at the 4*Town concert; while it could be assumed that he loves Aaron as a musician, this behavior is juxtaposed with Mei and her friends, who explicitly have crushes on the other four boys in the band]].

* CuteBruiser: Very much cute and since she acts as a bouncer for the group's red panda racket, and knocks down Mei with a single punch, they're aware that she's probably the strongest of the four.
* CutenessProximity: Abby is the first to gush over how cute Mei's red panda form is, even burying her face in her friend's fur. Later one, she requests a repeat of it as a reward in the school bathrooms, treating it like a security blanket of sorts, [[spoiler:which ends up exposing Mei's panda form to others in the school]].

-->'''Ming''': *''annoyed''* Where do she get that from, treating her mother like that.
-->'''Jin''': *''offers the phone to Ming''* Ming, it's your mother.
-->'''Ming''': *''panicked''* I'm not here! *''immediately drops to the couch and hides''*

* HypocriticalHumor:

-->'''Jin''': *''offers the phone to Ming''* Ming, it's your mother

* IAmAMonster: [[spoiler:She thinks that way about herself even more so than Mei, and not without reasons. The first time she turned into an out-of-control Kaiju-sized red panda, when she felt she would [[WellDoneSonGuy never be good enough]] for her overly strict mother, Ming scarred her mother's face in a rage, something that [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone she never forgave herself]] for.]]

* PlayfulCatSmile: Sports this whenever she's especially excited, fitting with her "mischievous oddball" personality.

* CatSmile: Sports this whenever she's especially excited, fitting with her "mischievous oddball" personality.

** She has a third one when she see that [[spoiler:she accidentally knocked her mom unconscious while fighting her, and runs up to try and take her back to circle, appologising as she's doing so. It takes her grandma helping her to snap her out of it]].

-->'''Mei:''' I'm not your little Mei-Mei, anymore! I LIED, mum!\\

* DeadpanSnarker: Downplayed in the first act, but after she starts embracing the panda she definitely [[TookALevelInSmartass turns the snark levels up a notch or two, usually towards her mum.]] She really lets her inner snarker out in the climax, when she's trying to [[spoiler:distract her mom, who is in her Kaiju-sized red panda form]].

* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Of the WellDoneDaughterGirl. She's trying so hard to be her mother Ming’s "perfect little Mei-Mei" that Mei has trouble setting boundaries with her mother, even when Mei thinks that Ming's going too far. She has to constantly lie to her mother and sneak around to do the things she wants to do behind her back. It comes to a head when [[spoiler:Ming accuses Mei's friends of doing things that were actually Mei's ideas in the first place, and Mei throws her friends under the bus rather than argue with her mom. Mei does eventually realize that [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone she's made a terrible mistake]], but it takes a sincere apology and an act of open rebellion to get Mei to realize that]].